Whiskey on the Rocks (11 page)
Read Whiskey on the Rocks Online
Authors: Nina Wright
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Women real estate agents, #Michigan, #General, #Mattimoe; Whiskey (Fictitious character), #Mystery fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Fiction
Jenx thought that was unlikely since the room had been sealed.
“’Sealed’? You mean with that lame piece of yellow tape Brady put up?”
“That’s called police procedure, Whiskey. And so is this.” With the care of a surgeon, she donned surgical gloves and laid the purse on its side.
Don’t let the finger roll out, I prayed.
“Ever heard of Rare Art For Sale?” said Jenx.
“Hasn’t everyone?”
“I mean the company. Their business card is in this bag. Read but don’t touch.”
She pushed the card across the desk to me. It bore no individual’s name or title. No address or phone, either—just the company name, a fancy logo, a web site and an email address.
“Could this be the Santys?” I said.
“You’re thinking about what the Mounties said—that they might be selling art online. If so, it’s one more connection to Holly Lomax, who’s very likely the dead woman we’ve been calling Mrs. Santy.”
“How do we find out?”
“Check that web site while I call Balboa.”
“Wait,” I said. “If I help you with this, does that make me your accessory?”
Jenx grinned. “I’m not into accessories. Or haven’t you noticed?”
I typed www.rareartforsale.com. What came up was one of those “This page cannot be displayed” messages. The web site was either currently unavailable or experiencing technical difficulties, or else my browser settings were screwed.
The email address was [email protected]. I knew enough about the Internet to appreciate that emails leave footprints. Just for fun, Chester once showed me how to create an anonymous web-based email account.
At the time I said, “Why would I want to do that?”
He said, “Maybe someday you’ll want to play in a Chat Room.”
This wasn’t about that, but I was ready to send my first email from [email protected]. WooWoo was Leo’s pet name for me.
Jenx had said to keep the message short. “Ask ‘What’s your price structure?’ and hit ‘send.’”
To my astonishment, I got an instant reply: “What are you looking for?”
“What have you got?” is what I wanted to write, but that seemed too obvious. So I typed “Paintings” instead.
“Real cute” came the reply. I tried again: “Watercolors.”
“Artist?” he or she wrote back.
I almost said, “Yes, please,” but opted for a name instead: “Matheney.”
“Starting at $45k” was the answer. I stared at the screen a minute, then typed: “How do we do this?”
Reply: “You’re beyond cute, you’re hilarious. Try online with credit cards. Which Matheney do you want?”
Before I could answer, [email protected] wrote: “Cumulus, Cirrus, or Nimbostratus?”
“Ask Brady, the Scholar.” Jenx was back, reading the screen. “He’ll be here any minute, and he knows about art.”
“How’d it go with Balboa?”
“The State Boys found human hair in the bathroom at Shadow Play. Long brown hair, so it didn’t belong to Mrs. Santy or Mrs. R. And they found hair dye.”
“What color?”
“Who has more fun?”
“Living people,” I said. “Our blonde got whacked.”
“There’s more.” Jenx’s eyes danced. “Balboa’s cousin works for the Chicago P.D. Being a cop is a family tradition. She said the police kept a key fact about Matheney’s death out of the news.”
“Don’t tell me. . . .”
“Yup. The corpse was missing a finger. Third one, left hand.”
“He must have been murdered,” I said.
“It looked like a heart attack. The finger removal came later.” She held up the purse. “We’ve got Cloud Man’s finger in the bag! But it’s missing his Celtic ring. Supposedly, he never took it off, but the cops haven’t found it.”
“Matheney’s Cloud Ring?” asked Brady, loping into Jenx’s office, Roscoe at his side. “Man, it was huge! And butt-ugly. I saw it myself when he was at the West Shore Gallery. It was his trademark. Oprah asked him about it when he was on her show. You could tell she thought it was butt-ugly, too.”
We brought Brady up to speed on Balboa’s report and my current adventures on the Internet. He sat down to study the messages from [email protected].
Chester appeared in the doorway, munching a T-bone Teaser, the oversized sandwich sold at Bake-The-Steak. Abra was eating one, too.
“What’s new with the finger?” said Chester.
“You didn’t tell anyone about it, did you?” I asked.
He made a face. “That would be unethical.”
“That can’t be right,” Brady said from his seat at the computer. “If you could even find a Matheney for sale right now, it’d cost four or five times this much. At least.”
“Do we have Matheney’s finger?” said Chester.
“Not on purpose,” I said.
“What are you writing?” Jenx peered over Brady’s shoulder.
“Test question. Let’s see if they pass.”
We moved toward the monitor to watch. Roscoe sniffed the non-regulation treat in Abra’s mouth. With atypical generosity, she let him have half.
“Bingo!” Brady cried.
The reply from [email protected] read: “Cumulonimbus not yet available.”
“What does that mean?” said Jenx.
Brady scratched his chin. “Rumor had it Matheney was starting a Cumulonimbus series. There were no public showings, though.”
He typed a question about provenance, which he explained to us means proof of origin.
“When you buy or sell fine art, you need documentation. It’s like the pedigree you get with your dog.”
The mere allusion to breeding was enough to set Abra off. She made a “come-hither” canine sound and displayed her hind end for Officer Roscoe’s viewing pleasure.
“She’s not in heat, is she?” Brady said. I recalled how she’d flirted with Roscoe the night they were at Shadow Play.
“Uh—” I began, realizing that I hadn’t got around to spaying her.
“No,” answered Chester with authority. “But it’s imminent.”
“I can’t believe a kid your age knows words like that,” Jenx said.
“I’m not six.”
“Well, well . . . ” mused Brady at the computer. “Our dealer’s doing a little dance. He says buyers get papers of provenance when they take possession.”
“And how do they do that?” Jenx asked.
“The old-fashioned way: Credit cards and overnight express. All they need is a credit limit of at least seventy grand.”
“Cassina charged a Mercedes once. With American Express,” offered Chester. When we stared at him, he added, “You have to pay that card off every month.”
“What did you tell the dealer?” I asked Brady.
“I said I’d get back to him. But he won’t respond again. We asked too many questions. ‘WooWoo’? Where’d you get that handle?”
I shrugged. Suddenly Brady jumped from his seat bellowing, “No, Abra, no!”
I looked where he was looking. Abra was prying open the purse on Jenx’s desk.
“Who trained her to do that?” I cried.
“We had a good day,” answered Brady. He grabbed what was left of Chester’s sandwich and tossed it to Abra.
Chester said, “She’d rather have the finger!”
Roscoe was barking, Brady was yelling, and the room was spinning. When I came to, I was on the linoleum, not far from Marilee’s spot. But Roscoe wasn’t there to lick my face. Brady and Chester were gone, too. So was Abra.
“What the hell happened?” I asked Jenx.
She said that Abra had grabbed the purse and escaped. But the best tracking team in Magnet Springs was on her trail. I pointed out that it was the only tracking team. And it consisted of an art-history student and a child.
“And Officer Roscoe,” Jenx reminded me.
“Officer Roscoe’s in love.”
Jenx bristled. “He’s a neutered professional.”
The door swung open. Brady and Chester shook their heads at us.
“Roscoe’s still on the case,” said Brady. “But Abra’s too fast. No way I was going to crawl after her through those brambles on Schuyler Street.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Wait for Roscoe.”
“And if he can’t find her?”
Brady patted my shoulder. “Roscoe always gets his man.”
“This is no man, Brady. This is an Afghan hound.”
Chester suggested we go home. “Maybe she’s waiting for us.”
Jenx whispered in my ear, “Take no chances: double up on poop patrol.”
When we pulled into the driveway at Vestige, it was nearly dark.
Furious as I was with her, I had hoped to see Abra dancing in my headlights. Instead, I spotted what looked like a large envelope duct-taped to my garage door. Chester didn’t wait for the vehicle to come to a complete stop. He leapt out and ripped open the envelope.
“What is it?” I reached for what he was holding.
“Not so fast! You’ll smudge any prints that are on it,” he said.
I noticed then that Chester wore surgical gloves.
“Where did those come from?”
“I asked Brady for a pair before we left. Just in case.”
He waved the note at me.
“This is bad news, Whiskey. Somebody kidnapped our dog.”
I don’t know which impressed me more—that Chester loved Abra enough to claim joint custody, or that someone would go to the trouble of kidnapping her.
“Technically, she hasn’t been kidnapped,” I told Chester after he’d held the note up so that I could read it.
“Dognapped, then,” he said.
“No. This says she went willingly.”
“Abra would never do that!” Chester cried.
But I knew better. I just wondered what they’d used as bait.
“Technically, this isn’t a ransom note because they’re not demanding money,” I explained.
“They’ve got Abra, and they want something from us! That’s ransom!”
Any minute now, Chester would start jumping up and down.
“Read it again!” he shouted.
Aloud I read, “‘We have your dog. No force was used. She came willingly—’”
Chester made a rude noise.
“‘—and is unhurt. For now. We assume you want to keep her that way.’”
Chester said, “Call Jenx! Or, better yet, get back in the car and drive to Police Headquarters. They need this note as evidence!”
“Evidence of what? We already know Abra’s missing. This doesn’t tell us anything. It doesn’t even mention the purse or—you know.”
“These people want something!” Chester insisted. “Why else would they duct-tape a note to your door? Why else wouldn’t Abra come home?”
I could think of several reasons Abra wouldn’t come home. Leo wasn’t here anymore, for starters. Although I fed and cared for her, our primary bond was gone. And then there were her criminal tendencies. The only difference this time was that she hadn’t had to find a purse worth stealing; the cops had conveniently provided one. They had even helped her polish her skills.
Chester said, “You’ve got to report this so Brady can put Officer Roscoe on the case!”
I reminded Chester that Officer Roscoe had punched out for the night and was probably snoring under Brady’s desk by now. I, too, was troubled by the note, but if someone wanted something in exchange for Abra, they’d have to be more specific.
Frustrated, Chester started hopping from one foot to the other. “For the love of Abra, call Jenx now!”
Even though his mother was back at The Castle, I knew I couldn’t just send Chester home. He was part of this now. I led the way into my kitchen. Already the house seemed ominously quiet without Abra, or the threat of her.
I assumed that Jenx would have switched the phone to Magnet Springs’ Overnight Dispatcher System—an answering service for three local communities that can’t afford police patrols 24/7. But the Acting Chief herself picked up my call.
“Still sitting here thinking,” she explained. News of the note intrigued her.
“How about I cruise over there and have a look-see?”
“It’s not like it’s a ransom note,” I said.